Meanwhile, Iris opened the dining-room door and looked in.
Nobody was there. The one other room on the ground floor, situated at the back of the building, was the doctor's consulting-room. She knocked at the door. Mr. Vimpany's voice answered: 'Come in.' There he was alone, drinking brandy and water, and smoking his big black cigar.
'Where is Lord Harry?' she said.
'In Ireland, I suppose,' Mr. Vimpany answered quietly.
Iris wasted no time in making useless inquiries. She closed the door again, and left him. He, too, was undoubtedly in the conspiracy to keep her deceived. How had it been done? Where was the wild lord, at that moment?
Whilst she was pursuing these reflections in the hall, Rhoda came up from the servants' tea-table in the kitchen. Her mistress gave her the necessary instructions for packing, and promised to help her before long. Mrs. Vimpany's audacious resolution to dispute the evidence of her own senses, still dwelt on Miss Henley's mind. Too angry to think of the embarrassment which an interview with Lord Harry would produce, after they had said their farewell words in Ireland, she was determined to prevent the doctor's wife from speaking to him first, and claiming him as an accomplice in her impudent denial of the truth. If he had been, by any chance, deluded into leaving the house, he would sooner or later discover the trick that had been played on him, and would certainly return. Iris took a chair in the hall.
It is due to the doctor to relate that he had indeed justified his wife's confidence in him.
The diamond pin, undergoing valuation in London, still represented a present terror in his mind. The money, the money—he was the most attentive husband in England when he thought of the money! At the time when Lord Harry's carriage stopped at his house-door, he was in the dining-room, taking a bottle of brandy from the cellaret in the sideboard. Looking instantly out of the window, he discovered who the visitor was, and decided on consulting his instructions in the pocket-diary. The attempt was rendered useless, as soon as he had opened the book, by the unlucky activity of the servant in answering the door. Her master stopped her in the hall. He was pleasantly conscious of the recovery of his cunning. But his memory (far from active under the most favourable circumstances) was slower than ever at helping him now. On the spur of the moment he could only call to mind that he had been ordered to prevent a meeting between Lord Harry and Iris. 'Show the gentleman into my consulting-room,' he said.
Lord Harry found the doctor enthroned on his professional chair, surprised and delighted to see his distinguished friend. The impetuous Irishman at once asked for Miss Henley.
'Gone,' Mr. Vimpany answered
'Gone—where?' the wild lord wanted to know next.
'To London.'
'By herself?'
'No; with Mr. Hugh Mountjoy.'
Lord Harry seized the doctor by the shoulders, and shook him: 'You don't mean to tell me Mountjoy is going to marry her?'
Mr. Vimpany feared nothing but the loss of money. The weaker and the older man of the two, he nevertheless followed the young lord's example, and shook him with right good-will. 'Let's see how you like it in your turn,' he said. 'As for Mountjoy, I don't know whether he is married or single—and don't care.'
'The devil take your obstinacy! When did they start?'
'The devil take your questions! They started not long since.'
'Might I catch them at the station?'
'Yes; if you go at once.'
So the desperate doctor carried out his wife's instructions—without remembering the conditions which had accompanied them.
The way to the station took Lord Harry past the inn. He saw Hugh Mountjoy through the open house door paying his bill at the bar. In an instant the carriage was stopped, and the two men (never on friendly terms) were formally bowing to each other.
'I was told I should find you,' Lord Harry said, 'with Miss Henley, at the station.'
'Who gave you your information?'
'Vimpany—the doctor.'
'He ought to know that the train isn't due at the station for an hour yet.'
'Has the blackguard deceived me? One word more, Mr. Mountjoy. Is Miss Henley at the inn?'
'No.'
'Are you going with her to London?'
'I must leave Miss Henley to answer that.'
'Where is she, sir?'
'There is an end to everything, my lord, in the world we live in. You have reached the end of my readiness to answer questions.' The Englishman and the Irishman looked at each other: the Anglo-Saxon was impenetrably cool; the Celt was flushed and angry. They might have been on the brink of a quarrel, but for Lord Harry's native quickness of perception, and his exercise of it at that moment. When he had called at Mr. Vimpany's house, and had asked for Iris, the doctor had got rid of him by means of a lie. After this discovery, at what conclusion could he arrive? The doctor was certainly keeping Iris out of his way. Reasoning in this rapid manner, Lord Harry let one offence pass, in his headlong eagerness to resent another. He instantly left Mountjoy. Again the carriage rattled back along the street; but it was stopped before it reached Mr. Vimpany's door.
Lord Harry knew the people whom he had to deal with, and took measures to approach the house silently, on
